SIR – The “elephant in the room” which Labour and now the Coalition continue to ignore is the illogicality of continuing to allow unrestricted immigration when we have a population density four times that of France, over two million unemployed, creaking public services and massive and increasing debts.

We are sleepwalking into yet more mass immigration in 2014 and yet we struggle to house and provide work for the people already here. Immigration must be stopped, at least until we have solved our current problems.

The logic is so obvious that we must assume that both the current and previous governments are unwilling to do the obvious for fear of upsetting the EU or through some misguided fear that it may be considered racist. At its core, it is simply a numbers issue.

Tinkering with the entry conditions is a sticking plaster and only increases the complexity and costs of managing the situation. If dealing with immigration includes telling Brussels that one size does not fit all and unrestricted entry to Britain is an abdication of a critical sovereign responsibility, so be it. The country will support responsible action. Failing to grasp the fundamental immigration issue will lose the Coalition parties the next election.

Dr Mike Bradshaw Chipperfield, Hertfordshire

SIR – Applause all round for Frank Field and Nicholas Soames. We are a tolerant, non-racist country. Let’s keep it like that.

Kevin Platt Walsall, Staffordshire

SIR – Your headline yesterday read: “MPs want immigrant ban to save British jobs”. Sixty years ago MPs brought immigrants to this country to do British jobs.

Tony West Panfield, Essex

SIR – Sarosh Zaiwalla (Letters, March 28) writes: “Entry to Britain must be on merit and merit alone.” Surely entry to Britain should be based on Britain’s needs.

A C Allen Whitchurch, Shropshire

Pricing parenthood

SIR – Why does the Government require parents to work outside the home in order to improve GDP? Are there not thousands of unemployed people out there?

Perhaps employers are not getting the return on their investment if trained staff leave to bring up children, and politicians really mean that parent-friendly policies themselves damage the economy?

Let people choose whether to work outside the home as well as in, but make it an actual choice and not purely financial.

Jane Lacey Duffield, Derbyshire

Safety of GM crops

SIR – A major change in agriculture is being proposed by Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, who has stated that Britain should grow GM crops.

The chief public concern is whether GM food is safe for human consumption. An authoritative report published this year states: “For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other high-income countries and this disadvantage has been getting worse for three decades, especially among women.” No one knows if GM food is a factor in this decline or not.

The use of systemic herbicides and pesticides is fundamental to GM crop technology. It is inexcusable that there has been an absence of independent long-term trials. Britain did commence a three-year GM potato-feeding trial with rodents in 1995, but after 110 days the government closed it down. Good scientific practice would be to repeat such a trial.

A non-biodegradable pesticide widely used in GM crops has been found in the reproductive systems of a significant sample number of Canadian women.

GM crop technology does not have a monopoly on the science of genetics. Many of the things GM crop science promised but failed to deliver – such as drought-resistant and disease-resistant crops – are being achieved by organic farming and low-input farming with the help of technology such as marker-assisted selection.

Britain’s arable land already suffers from compaction, excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers (affecting micro-flora) and a lack of replacement humus after harvests. GM crops would aggravate these, endanger seed supply and risk the nation’s health.

John Little Bigbury on Sea, Devon

More strikes, please

SIR – When the BBC journalists went on strike on Thursday, programmes such as PM were replaced with old recordings. I thoroughly enjoyed Robert Winston’s epic story of the discovery of DNA. Can we please have similar strikes once a week?

Steven Schrier Hayling Island, Hampshire

Familiar ring

SIR – I lost my wedding ring (Letters, March 29) after 20 years of married bliss. I was upset at the time, but after a few months my wonderful husband bought me the most beautiful substitute.

About six months later the original ring turned up, but I decided to stick with the new one. Unfortunately, after a few weeks I looked at my hand and saw it had gone.

So my dear old friend has been reinstated and is still on my finger – 44 years and counting.

Diana Pelly Stansted, Essex

SIR – Over the 71 years of my life I have lost six rings but failed to find any of them.

Gill Tweed London SW18

Bach is no baggage

SIR – Bob Perkins writes that Bach’s music “is just one example of the weight of baggage that contemporary Christianity has to bear”. He is, of course, right that Christianity is about “Jesus’s message of love for one’s neighbour” (including, one might add, those who enjoy Bach); but that’s not all it’s about.

When Jesus was asked to name the first commandment he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Love of God is to involve the whole of our human nature, including our capacity to create and to enjoy beauty.

For many of us, the beauty of music and the other arts is a near-indispensable aid to lifting up of the spirit in worship. Only if it becomes a barrier between us and God can it be described as “mere baggage”.

What’s more, the Christian’s desire and ability to love his neighbour flows from the experience of the love of God, received and returned in worship. Or, to put it in the words of William Temple: “It is sometimes said that conduct is supremely important and worship helps it. The truth is that worship is supremely important and conduct tests it.”

Canon Michael Gudgeon Littlehampton, West Sussex

SIR – My faith will sometimes waver, but whenever I hear the St Matthew Passion or St John Passion, I know that there has to be a God.

John Martin Soberton, Hampshire

Magpie’s sorry tail

SIR – A magpie, (a member of the crow family, Letters, March 29) spied our lurcher on our back lawn chewing away at a raw bone. The bird landed about 5ft in front of her and decided upon a strategy for getting at the bone.

The magpie hopped, in a semi-circle, around the dog and, when safely behind her, very sharply pecked the dog’s tail. It had the desired result as the dog jumped up with a yelp and ran indoors, leaving the magpie to feed on the bone for a few seconds.

Robert Vickers Holmfirth, West Yorkshire

SIR – The residents of the magpie nest that I can see from my bedroom window have started repairing it after a holiday of three weeks. Do they know something that Carol Kirkwood and Co don’t?

John Wild Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

Preserving the last warship from Gallipoli

SIR – Hampshire County Council should not be criticised but praised for helping to preserve the First World War ship HMS M33 (report, March 18).

M33, designed for shore bombardment, is the only ship left from the invasion of Gallipoli. With the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli coming up in 2015, it is important that people should be able to visit it.

Much time has been spent by the county council investigating the preservation project. The money it has spent is an investment in tourism and precursor for a lottery bid.

However, with the county council elections coming up, it was no surprise that a Liberal Democrat councillor should (falsely) claim that libraries were under threat of closure and yet the council was wasting money on an old ship.

We have the greatest historic collection of ships and maritime artefacts in the world on the shores of the Portsmouth Harbour communities. Hampshire County Council has always been a main financial player in the development of this collection.

For example, the Mary Rose project could probably never have happened without the county’s support over many years.

It never seems like the right time to put money into the conservation of these historic vessels. The Portsmouth heritage ship collection originated when HMS Victory was saved for the nation. This was at the time of the Thirties depression – but who would question the wisdom of that decision today?

We owe it to the Anzac troops and the 400,000 British who fought at Gallipoli to keep HMS M33 as a national memorial to those who died in the battle.

It would be irresponsible not to help the National Museum of the Royal Navy to save the ship as a unique educational heritage attraction for local people and visitors to our historic county.